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Even being a Thousand Son's player I am going to have to disagree with the OP. I think one of the biggest issues with psychic powers in 40,000 has always been the ability to spam them. The rule of one certainly would have helped make 6th more tolerable for non-psychics and probably would have helped a lot in 7th (I only played a few games of 7th so I am not sure). But even going back further, Eldar would spam both Doom and Guide and does anyone remember Lash of Slaneesh? Using that multiple times was really broken. I think that if they allowed psychic powers to be cast more than once, it would really make psychics really over powered. I do agree however that the rule of one should be cast and not attempt. Also, I do think that the really psychic armies (Grey Knights, Thousand Sons, Tzeencth deamons, probably even Eldar) should have more than 6 powers, probably more like 9 or 12. I don't think Grey Knights would be broken if they had access to their powers and the general marine powers. I am really hoping that Thousand Sons get to use the Heretic powers, and then get like three Tzeentch or powers or maybe a small three power "Change" school. Also for Grey Knights, Thousand Sons and other psychic armies there really should be a stratagem that allows to cast a spell an additional time in Match play. That would help and I don't think would be really overpowered, especially if it was like 2 or 3 CP. Finally, for all the Grey Knight players, at least your psychic squads can even cast a normal power. My 30/50 point aspiring sorcerers can only cast baby smite.

I remember Lash. Lash was a boogeyman used to scare scrub players because it was an infantry-manipulating gimmick in a game of Razorback spam. Besides, you only got 2 of them and since it was a Psychic Shooting attack, its use was really limited.

What was more jarring was how 5e Marine Librarians were "take 2 powers for free at army creation." Smite and Null Zone were not on the same level. Ditto Jaws versus Thunderclap.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I remember Lash. Lash was a boogeyman used to scare scrub players because it was an infantry-manipulating gimmick in a game of Razorback spam.

Ahh the good ole lash and vindicator trick.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Gee, if only GW could balance powers so they could scale properly, and not make them so you can only attempt to cast once per turn, whether it's a 500-point game or a 5000-point game.

Why not make it so Imperial Guard may only attempt to issue eacu Order only once per turn? For balance of course. Naturally, they must roll 2d6, and on a 2 or 12, the Officer accidentally electrocutes himself with the Vox-Relay. It's ok though, because although they're powerful bonuses that can do things like let large units shoot twice or fight twice, there's no way to deny them.

It's a joke that people think Psychic Focus is anything resembling a balanced mechanic, simply due to its nonscalability. Remember how awesome 5e White Dwarf Sisters when they only got D6 Faith Points per turn, regardless of the point level?

Yeah - I pretty much have to agree with you here. At 2000 points Gk's have trouble because of psychic focus but at 5000 points - why would you even bring them to a game? The rule has 0 scale-ability. It's almost like GW is trying to encourage people to play open play.

Who plays 5000 points? The game is clearly not really meant to be played at that level. And if you were playing a 5000 point game, you could just use open play, which allows psychic powers to be cast many times.

Scalability is the trickiest thing, IMO, for Psyker powers. It would require different rules for different abilities. Fury of the Ancients isn't too terribly dangerous if you could spam that. But if you could load up on Farseers and hand out Doom and Guide like candy, it would be absolutely devastating, more so than how strong that combo of Psyker buff/debuffs already are.

But once again, comparing it to another power, it brings in to question why something like Hammerhand cannot cast by all Grey Knight units in the same turn, if they so desire to. +1 to your Wound Rolls in melee is a big buff, but again, something like Gate of Infinity is on a different level and would need a different ruling.
Not all Psyker powers were created equal, obviously.

A little tag such as "Your Army can attempt to Manifest [specific power] an [x] amount of times per Psychic phase, across all units" or however the wording would be, that would enable lesser Psyker powers to be used more often, and the truly powerful ones, limited to once per psyker phase, as it is right now, in Matched Play.

I will say that there's no reason for the HQ units not to have regular Smite.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I remember Lash. Lash was a boogeyman used to scare scrub players because it was an infantry-manipulating gimmick in a game of Razorback spam.

Ahh the good ole lash and vindicator trick.

Back when blasts were half-strength vs vehicles if they weren't centered? Sure. Oh yeah, but sure you could take T4 Obliterators at 70 points per lascannon shot to help you! Just had to deal with cover being 4+ by default, and 50% cover. Oh yeah, and don't even think of going up against Eldar, since Runes of Warding meant you took Psychic Tests on 3d6, and any roll of 12+ caused Perils. I swear, Eldrad killed more Rune Priests by simply sitting back and putting on a trollface as their heads exploded.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Gee, if only GW could balance powers so they could scale properly, and not make them so you can only attempt to cast once per turn, whether it's a 500-point game or a 5000-point game.

Why not make it so Imperial Guard may only attempt to issue eacu Order only once per turn? For balance of course. Naturally, they must roll 2d6, and on a 2 or 12, the Officer accidentally electrocutes himself with the Vox-Relay. It's ok though, because although they're powerful bonuses that can do things like let large units shoot twice or fight twice, there's no way to deny them.

It's a joke that people think Psychic Focus is anything resembling a balanced mechanic, simply due to its nonscalability. Remember how awesome 5e White Dwarf Sisters when they only got D6 Faith Points per turn, regardless of the point level?

Yeah - I pretty much have to agree with you here. At 2000 points Gk's have trouble because of psychic focus but at 5000 points - why would you even bring them to a game? The rule has 0 scale-ability. It's almost like GW is trying to encourage people to play open play.

For 5k points why wouldn't you use open/narrative play are you really playing competitive 5k point games? The rule is meant for balance at levels of competitive play.

I suppose it is designed for 2000 point games. My group likes to play by the same rules all the time but switch up the point levels so we can use more of our models. It's a bunch of power gamers though so - not playing by competitive rules is a no go. Which is why i really don't like this psychic focus rule.

Ok, but you're already going off-road when you decide to "switch it up" like that. You're going against the balance that the game was designed for and then saying "we're power gamers, going against balance is a no-go." No, you're already doing it.

Psychic focus scales terribly. Yes. But it works just fine for the level it's balanced for.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Except our Smite is worse than everybody elses,

Warlocks and Horrors disagree.

Rubric and Scarab Occult Sorcerers would also like to jump in on this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:
I said it before il say it again. House rule it so psychic powers don't stack with themselves. As long as you cannot pile the same debuff/buff onto a single unit it's all pretty fair.

Yeah.... wait till every unit in Chaos gets to Prescience themselves. Or Warp Time up the table and assault turn 1.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I remember Lash. Lash was a boogeyman used to scare scrub players because it was an infantry-manipulating gimmick in a game of Razorback spam.

Ahh the good ole lash and vindicator trick.

Back when blasts were half-strength vs vehicles if they weren't centered? Sure. Oh yeah, but sure you could take T4 Obliterators at 70 points per lascannon shot to help you! Just had to deal with cover being 4+ by default, and 50% cover. Oh yeah, and don't even think of going up against Eldar, since Runes of Warding meant you took Psychic Tests on 3d6, and any roll of 12+ caused Perils. I swear, Eldrad killed more Rune Priests by simply sitting back and putting on a trollface as their heads exploded.

Oh yea Runes of Warding. I forgot about that. Would kill my little, overpriced aspiring sorcerer who was trying to use Bolt of Change for what was basically a laser-cannon shot. I also forgot about Jaws. Actually thinking about it after playing 2nd - 6th, and my little experience with 7th, these are probably the best psychic rules GW ever developed.

 xeen wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I remember Lash. Lash was a boogeyman used to scare scrub players because it was an infantry-manipulating gimmick in a game of Razorback spam.

Ahh the good ole lash and vindicator trick.

Back when blasts were half-strength vs vehicles if they weren't centered? Sure. Oh yeah, but sure you could take T4 Obliterators at 70 points per lascannon shot to help you! Just had to deal with cover being 4+ by default, and 50% cover. Oh yeah, and don't even think of going up against Eldar, since Runes of Warding meant you took Psychic Tests on 3d6, and any roll of 12+ caused Perils. I swear, Eldrad killed more Rune Priests by simply sitting back and putting on a trollface as their heads exploded.

Oh yea Runes of Warding. I forgot about that. Would kill my little, overpriced aspiring sorcerer who was trying to use Bolt of Change for what was basically a laser-cannon shot. I also forgot about Jaws. Actually thinking about it after playing 2nd - 6th, and my little experience with 7th, these are probably the best psychic rules GW ever developed.

I actually liked 7th best because I liked the idea of warp charge, resource allocation, etc. It could be the brief dalliance I had with Warmachine talking though. The system clearly had its flaws, yet they truly didn't become 100% noticable until Wrath of Magnus basically doubled down on said flaws for such a system. Also, Siphon Magic was the worst-designed power ever.

Really, rewriting Wrath of Magnus has been sort of a homebrew obsession of mine, simply because I was so angry over how sloppy the rules for it were.

 Purifier wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Gee, if only GW could balance powers so they could scale properly, and not make them so you can only attempt to cast once per turn, whether it's a 500-point game or a 5000-point game.

Why not make it so Imperial Guard may only attempt to issue eacu Order only once per turn? For balance of course. Naturally, they must roll 2d6, and on a 2 or 12, the Officer accidentally electrocutes himself with the Vox-Relay. It's ok though, because although they're powerful bonuses that can do things like let large units shoot twice or fight twice, there's no way to deny them.

It's a joke that people think Psychic Focus is anything resembling a balanced mechanic, simply due to its nonscalability. Remember how awesome 5e White Dwarf Sisters when they only got D6 Faith Points per turn, regardless of the point level?

Yeah - I pretty much have to agree with you here. At 2000 points Gk's have trouble because of psychic focus but at 5000 points - why would you even bring them to a game? The rule has 0 scale-ability. It's almost like GW is trying to encourage people to play open play.

For 5k points why wouldn't you use open/narrative play are you really playing competitive 5k point games? The rule is meant for balance at levels of competitive play.

I suppose it is designed for 2000 point games. My group likes to play by the same rules all the time but switch up the point levels so we can use more of our models. It's a bunch of power gamers though so - not playing by competitive rules is a no go. Which is why i really don't like this psychic focus rule.

Ok, but you're already going off-road when you decide to "switch it up" like that. You're going against the balance that the game was designed for and then saying "we're power gamers, going against balance is a no-go." No, you're already doing it.

Psychic focus scales terribly. Yes. But it works just fine for the level it's balanced for.

Why is only 2000 points considered competitive?

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Gee, if only GW could balance powers so they could scale properly, and not make them so you can only attempt to cast once per turn, whether it's a 500-point game or a 5000-point game.

Why not make it so Imperial Guard may only attempt to issue eacu Order only once per turn? For balance of course. Naturally, they must roll 2d6, and on a 2 or 12, the Officer accidentally electrocutes himself with the Vox-Relay. It's ok though, because although they're powerful bonuses that can do things like let large units shoot twice or fight twice, there's no way to deny them.

It's a joke that people think Psychic Focus is anything resembling a balanced mechanic, simply due to its nonscalability. Remember how awesome 5e White Dwarf Sisters when they only got D6 Faith Points per turn, regardless of the point level?

Yeah - I pretty much have to agree with you here. At 2000 points Gk's have trouble because of psychic focus but at 5000 points - why would you even bring them to a game? The rule has 0 scale-ability. It's almost like GW is trying to encourage people to play open play.

For 5k points why wouldn't you use open/narrative play are you really playing competitive 5k point games? The rule is meant for balance at levels of competitive play.

I suppose it is designed for 2000 point games. My group likes to play by the same rules all the time but switch up the point levels so we can use more of our models. It's a bunch of power gamers though so - not playing by competitive rules is a no go. Which is why i really don't like this psychic focus rule.

Ok, but you're already going off-road when you decide to "switch it up" like that. You're going against the balance that the game was designed for and then saying "we're power gamers, going against balance is a no-go." No, you're already doing it.

Psychic focus scales terribly. Yes. But it works just fine for the level it's balanced for.

Why is only 2000 points considered competitive?

Because to have balance between the sheer amount of different kind of units that we have in 40k, you have to pick a number. Some will be stronger at lesser and some will be stronger at higher points numbers. You have to pick a size and balance everyone around that. You can't balance at all points levels. It's a fool's errand. It cannot succeed. It would of course be bloody helpful if GW came out and said "oh yeah, and we're balancing for X points." In Malifaux the balance is for 50 points, but you can go lower or higher (higher is unusual, lower does have rules suggestions) but anything other than 50 tends to get grossly imbalanced. Low points games are dominated by summoner lists.

Does anyone else here feel that Psykers are paying double for the 'benefit' of smite spam though?

I mean these specialized psyker heavy armies tend to have far fewer units than other armies. Their units are smaller generally than other armies. And these armies tend to have more 'fluff' units like Cultists to try and compensate for these failures.

So right off the bat they're paying a premium for the benefit of the smite spam that alone probably outweighs the spell completely. Then you have to factor in the high risk of actually using psychic powers and the likelyhood you'll lose 25% of your psykers due to self inflicted wounds than due to enemy combat.

So while I agree with some in this thread that limiting the spells in some fashion was needed and psychic focus may be reasonable, the benefits of psykers really aren't compensating for the drawbacks.

If we left the ability to only use 1 spell a turn shouldn't perils be less severe for these armies?

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 xeen wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I remember Lash. Lash was a boogeyman used to scare scrub players because it was an infantry-manipulating gimmick in a game of Razorback spam.

Ahh the good ole lash and vindicator trick.

Back when blasts were half-strength vs vehicles if they weren't centered? Sure. Oh yeah, but sure you could take T4 Obliterators at 70 points per lascannon shot to help you! Just had to deal with cover being 4+ by default, and 50% cover. Oh yeah, and don't even think of going up against Eldar, since Runes of Warding meant you took Psychic Tests on 3d6, and any roll of 12+ caused Perils. I swear, Eldrad killed more Rune Priests by simply sitting back and putting on a trollface as their heads exploded.

Oh yea Runes of Warding. I forgot about that. Would kill my little, overpriced aspiring sorcerer who was trying to use Bolt of Change for what was basically a laser-cannon shot. I also forgot about Jaws. Actually thinking about it after playing 2nd - 6th, and my little experience with 7th, these are probably the best psychic rules GW ever developed.

I actually liked 7th best because I liked the idea of warp charge, resource allocation, etc. It could be the brief dalliance I had with Warmachine talking though. The system clearly had its flaws, yet they truly didn't become 100% noticable until Wrath of Magnus basically doubled down on said flaws for such a system. Also, Siphon Magic was the worst-designed power ever.

Really, rewriting Wrath of Magnus has been sort of a homebrew obsession of mine, simply because I was so angry over how sloppy the rules for it were.

I disagree with your assessment that the flaws weren't noticeable until wrath of magnus. I saw them from the get go, 7th as written was a terrible set of psychic rules. 8th is by far superior as far as balance is concerned. Could better rules exist sure, but your argument always seems to be "make powers weaker" at that point why not just make powers like auras/attacks from other characters and call it a day. GW wants them to be cool unique things that are risky to use, which is what 8th makes them, better than any previous edition.

Breng77 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
My Grey Knights are limited to 6 powers a turn max? That's totally unfair since we're balanced around each unit having a psychic power from Sanctic.

Maybe if we could use other disciplines, but we're stuck with Sanctic and thats it.

Psychic Focus needs to just get errata'd into non-existence.

Did you consider maybe you're balanced around not being able to have every unit cast those powers and mostly just casting weaker smite? It seems reasonable to me that this is the case especially because your smite is not full strength. Play testing obviously showed that casting multiples of the same spell was too powerful. So I think it is reasonable to think that you are balanced around having the ability to use those powers but not balanced around using them every single turn.

GW? Playtesting? Lol.

And GKs are clearly paying a lot of points for that Smite+1 Sanctic Power over equivalent marine units(plus some points for the force weapons). So we're paying a hella lot of points for abilities we cannot use each turn.

And our Smite is pretty damn awful. It's a 91% chance of causing 1 mortal wound to a unit within 12". Sounds ok, but then you realize that it comes with the price tag of a 5.5% chance of losing D3 wounds off the unit. Plus your opponent gets a chance to deny it. If you have 5 units casting smite each turn because they have nothing else to do with the psychic phase, thats around a 25% chance of at least 1 Perils on one of your units. Also completely ignoring the chance of your units periling on any of the actual good powers.

Grey Knights should be good at psychic powers, not completely gimped at psychic powers.

Oh, and Purge Soul still is kinda lame for a psychic power. It's basically a potentially better Smite, but still only range 12. So we might as well say that our discipline only have 5 actually useful powers that feel like psychic powers.

So wait, GK's get Smite-Lite AND another power on all their guys?

Breng77 wrote:

You are also not really paying for it.

Regular marine = 13 points
Strike Squad = 19 points
Nemesis Force sword = free
Force Sword = 12 points

If a regular marine could take a force sword he would be 6 points more than a GK. So lets chalk that up to a discount due to having fewer attacks than things that can take Force swords in most marine factions (though your characters benefit from that same discount)

On top of that you get a weak version of smite, re-roll wounds against daemons, the ability to deny psychic powers, and teleport strike vs Chapter tactics. So lets call that a wash for this purpose.

So you are paying 6 points for a force sword, seems to me that maybe you were balanced around not having every squad cast any power every turn.

There is a valid point here, but I have some criticisms. Grey Knights do get a lot for the points spent when you start adding the differences between standard marines and strikes up ala carte. Fundamentally however, any given model in the game should be paying (moderately to significantly) more for optional equipment than a model with it built in. The rationale is because when you can only take as many of them as you need, you can better optimize a unit for a given purpose. There are also some drawbacks to the way this is handled in the current system. GK do not get any point reduction for replacing their NFW with a psycannon, for example. And the Terminator weapons are grossly more expensive for the privilege of... I guess keeping theirs? Since relentless isn't a thing anymore, I'm not sure what the justification is otherwise, but that's probably another topic right there.

Of course, when an army can potentially consist of 20-50 primaris psykers unless you house rule a limit to detachments (and that list would likely be deceptively powerful) I don't see anything out of hand about giving GK the Scooty Puff Senior version of smite, or at least on the HQs. Hell, at least the _librarian_. As it stands now, I don't know why you would take one now.

You'll see that this trend continues if you compare guard to marines as well (though that gets trickier because of the profile changes not having a point cost).

 nintura wrote:
So wait, GK's get Smite-Lite AND another power on all their guys?

Yeah. Bad smite and a power that 80% of the time you can never use because you'll have given it to your Librarian to cast. So it really might as well not be there at all.

Only thing that makes them feel like psykers is they can all attempt to deny.

Without psychic focus the game would be totally and supremely broken. And the psychich phase in 7th edition was about as much fun as a severe flogging.

pismakron wrote:
Without psychic focus the game would be totally and supremely broken. And the psychich phase in 7th edition was about as much fun as a severe flogging.

Except it goes too far. Sure, it would be broken to get 2+ invulns on every Grey Knight unit. But giving different units all +1 invuln or Hammerhand would be totally fine.

Psychic Focus basically makes psyker heavy armies wasted points.

The GK ability to do so many psychic powers from their already very strong units is bordering on obscenely powerful already. They don't need to be able to cast them even more. The best psychics in other armies are already barely better than the basic Grey Knight.

Plus, don't you get access to six powers now? Ork's only get 3, and only two of those are actually useful. IG psykers only get 3 too. Think yourself lucky (unless I'm mistaken).

If GK get to use multiple powers each each turn, then I should get to use multiple Canticles each turn. 5 shroudpalms for 1++ saves for all my troops please thanks totally fair.

Librarian? Whats that...he gets no bonus to cast or anything. It's a worthless model for the GK. Imagine that - GK librarians are the worst Librarians in the game...

 Grey Templar wrote:
Only thing that makes them feel like psykers is they can all attempt to deny.

Which you'd understand how powerful it is if you tried out an army like Tau or Adeptus Mechanicus instead.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Librarian? Whats that...he gets no bonus to cast or anything. It's a worthless model for the GK. Imagine that - GK librarians are the worst Librarians in the game...

He's not really useless... his job can just be done by the rest of the army, which is perfectly in line with the fluff.

Niiru wrote:
The GK ability to do so many psychic powers from their already very strong units is bordering on obscenely powerful already. They don't need to be able to cast them even more. The best psychics in other armies are already barely better than the basic Grey Knight.

Plus, don't you get access to six powers now? Ork's only get 3, and only two of those are actually useful. IG psykers only get 3 too. Think yourself lucky (unless I'm mistaken).

If GK get to use multiple powers each each turn, then I should get to use multiple Canticles each turn. 5 shroudpalms for 1++ saves for all my troops please thanks totally fair.

Except its not "so many psychic powers". thats the problem. Turn 1. Nothing is really in melee or within 12" range. So Hammerhand, Purge Soul, Vortex of Doom, and Smite are all useless. Which leaves Sanctuary, Astral Aim, and Gate of Infinity, which could get 1 unit in range to use one of the other powers potentially.

My current 1850 list gets 10 powers of choice from Sanctic. But I can only, at most, cast 6 of them each turn. So 4 of my power slots are totally wasted each turn. And realistically several of the others are as well since on any given turn there will likely be 1-2 powers I don't want to cast/have no target for. Plus whatever my opponent denies or if I fail.

If I fail to cast Sanctuary, well too bad that was my one use of Sanctuary this turn. Now I'm totally screwed even though there are 3 other units with Sanctuary who could cast it. Or if I cast sanctuary but my opponent denies it, I am similarly screwed.

 Grey Templar wrote:

pismakron wrote:
Without psychic focus the game would be totally and supremely broken. And the psychich phase in 7th edition was about as much fun as a severe flogging.

Except it goes too far. Sure, it would be broken to get 2+ invulns on every Grey Knight unit. But giving different units all +1 invuln or Hammerhand would be totally fine.

Psychic Focus basically makes psyker heavy armies wasted points.

I don't know about that. I have 372 points worth of dedicated psykers in my current 2000 points list, and without psychich focus it would be instawin whenever I got first turn. I dunno, maybe there will be more psychic powers on the codexes.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
My Grey Knights are limited to 6 powers a turn max? That's totally unfair since we're balanced around each unit having a psychic power from Sanctic.

Maybe if we could use other disciplines, but we're stuck with Sanctic and thats it.

Psychic Focus needs to just get errata'd into non-existence.

Did you consider maybe you're balanced around not being able to have every unit cast those powers and mostly just casting weaker smite? It seems reasonable to me that this is the case especially because your smite is not full strength. Play testing obviously showed that casting multiples of the same spell was too powerful. So I think it is reasonable to think that you are balanced around having the ability to use those powers but not balanced around using them every single turn.

GW? Playtesting? Lol.

And GKs are clearly paying a lot of points for that Smite+1 Sanctic Power over equivalent marine units(plus some points for the force weapons). So we're paying a hella lot of points for abilities we cannot use each turn.

And our Smite is pretty damn awful. It's a 91% chance of causing 1 mortal wound to a unit within 12". Sounds ok, but then you realize that it comes with the price tag of a 5.5% chance of losing D3 wounds off the unit. Plus your opponent gets a chance to deny it. If you have 5 units casting smite each turn because they have nothing else to do with the psychic phase, thats around a 25% chance of at least 1 Perils on one of your units. Also completely ignoring the chance of your units periling on any of the actual good powers.

Grey Knights should be good at psychic powers, not completely gimped at psychic powers.

Oh, and Purge Soul still is kinda lame for a psychic power. It's basically a potentially better Smite, but still only range 12. So we might as well say that our discipline only have 5 actually useful powers that feel like psychic powers.

Show me those points, I broke it down for you you pay 6 points per model more than a regular marine, and have a forceweapon. Is you argument that having a force weapon is not worth 6 points when a power sword is 4? SO tell me where these extra points are? You are paying for having force weapons on every model, there is not a lot of points for Smite + 1 power, you are paying a minimal amount for these abilities at best. remember you also get teleport strike.



Sure you can perils, but mortal wounds are a very strong ability. And you can use CP re-rolls to prevent perils to an extent.

You also leave out on purge soul that it is better than smite, because you choose the target, so you can snipe characters and do more wounds to enemy units potentially up to 10 Mortal wounds to some low LD units. It isn't great but if you could use it every turn instead of smite you generally would.



As for play testing it has been openly discussed what testing was done, maybe you don't like it but it happened.

 Purifier wrote:

He's not really useless... his job can just be done by the rest of the army, which is perfectly in line with the fluff.

Not at all. In the fluff, Grey Knight line troopers focus their psychic abilities on their force weapons and defensive abilities. And maybe the occasional offensive zap. Librarians are the ones who handle the more difficult powers.

Yet yeah, its totally better to not take Librarians at all.

 Grey Templar wrote:

pismakron wrote:
Without psychic focus the game would be totally and supremely broken. And the psychich phase in 7th edition was about as much fun as a severe flogging.

Except it goes too far. Sure, it would be broken to get 2+ invulns on every Grey Knight unit. But giving different units all +1 invuln or Hammerhand would be totally fine.

Psychic Focus basically makes psyker heavy armies wasted points.

Well.. no. Because that basically would mean your whole army would be permanently +1 better on all saves, plus +1 to wound rolls, plus whatever spare on smites, and that would be insanely powerful for their points. I'd be willing to let you play that as a house rule, but only if you increased the points cost of each unit appropriately.

The whole point of the limitation is that you need to strategically use your powers, picking and choosing the units that you think would make best use of the bonuses. And if you get it wrong, and your opponent managed to outflank you and hit a unit that isn't under the bonus, then they get to make some kills.

In your version, Grey Knights never have any weaknesses to exploit, and are always covered in magic armour and always do double damage in combat and no you can't hurt me because I'm now in my invisible cloak NO TAKEBACKS I'M TAKING MY BALL AND GOING HOME

Breng77 wrote:

Show me those points, I broke it down for you you pay 6 points per model more than a regular marine, and have a forceweapon. Is you argument that having a force weapon is not worth 6 points when a power sword is 4? SO tell me where these extra points are? You are paying for having force weapons on every model, there is not a lot of points for Smite + 1 power, you are paying a minimal amount for these abilities at best. remember you also get teleport strike.

You're not taking into account losing the vanilla marine rules and options. Opportunity cost is a thing you know.